


Did You Come To Say Goodbye?

by LostInQueue



Category: Star Wars, Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Sequel Trilogy
Genre: Afterlife, Alternate Universe, Ben Solo’s Afterlife, Ben is a ghost, Car Accident, Curiosity, Death, F/M, Fear of loss, Feels, Flowers, Fluff, Gen, Ghosts, HEA, Halloween, Happy Ending, Homelessness, Hope, Loss, Modern AU, Planting, Reminicing, Rey remembers childhood with Rose, SO MUCH FLUFF, Spirits, Star Gazing, Tear Jerker, Tears sneak up on you, The Past, Trust, ben solo spirit, fear of loneliness, interactions with ghosts, interactions with spirits, junk yard, rey is soul searching - literally, rose moved on, sleeping in a laundromat, sunrise, sunset, working at night
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-10-21
Updated: 2018-10-24
Packaged: 2019-08-05 11:57:54
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 4
Words: 9,717
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16367375
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/LostInQueue/pseuds/LostInQueue
Summary: Rey and her friends had been out celebrating and been hit by another vehicle. Her best friend Rose dies on impact changing her life entirely so that she can work and visit her friend at night.Maple Lake Cemetery is beautiful. Rey shares her time with her friend, counting the stars as they come out, planting flowers and chatting while an eerie cool flash freezes a flower she’d laid on another grave in sympathy. Was it in her head? Or was she being contacted?





	1. Living In The Shadows

A burning orange sun turns pink through the haze as it lowers closer to the horizon. This would be one of the most beautiful sights, warmed with lovely memories of united soulmates and the evening out with their friends to celebrate well into the cooled blue silhouetted landscape before them. Smiling deeply, inwardly, she breathed in this moment not ever wanting to forget it.

Well into twilight their crew would head home for much needed rest after such a celebration. Despite their life change, they’d stayed sober, finding themselves in the path of a pair of wildly swerving headlights.

Screeching tires and the sudden impact throws her long time friend through the windshield of her beaten down ninety nine civic. She remembers the gasp wrenching through her friend’s lungs before her impending death. Others in the car had cried for help, but she made no sounds, falling in to the dark. 

Briefly waking to a persistent woman shaking her shoulders and lifting her eyelids. 

“Miss?! Can you hear me?” Muttering burrows it’s way into the white noise, “Clear the area.” Lightly hearing the crunch of metal bending under a press, presumably from the ‘jaws of life,’ the only survivor of this horrendous accident had been given a second chance at life. Rescuers took precautions setting a neck brace and then back-boarding her. 

“She’s so young...” an assumption of an older rescuer’s voice she couldn’t see deeply noted.

“They all are, Rian.” Another said, the telltale double tap of discomfort hit the fabric of Rian’s shoulder as the second shuffled around.

Feeling immovable their victim panics pulling on the restraints of her safety. She called for names. For help. For Rose. For people’s names they couldn’t understand. Paramedics that arrived first on the scene would try to calm the woman, telling her she was in an accident and needed to breathe. “You’re badly hurt,” a woman’s voice says, rechecking her pupils. “You were in a bad accident,” she follows up. “Can you tell me your name?”

“Rey.” She battles to exhale in her panic. 

“Do you have a last name, Rey?”

“K-Kenobi. I’m Rey Kenobi.” She whines as the shock threatens her senses.

———

Deaf from the grief of learning she lost her friend Rose, a companion she’s had since her childhood. Her very best friend. The only one who knew her like a sister. Rey found herself changing her entire schedule to accommodate now being alone. Afraid of sleeping alone, she decides it’s safer to hunker down in public places where she could be safe in the eyes of security cameras and fellow strangers of the light. 

At night she took up jobs that required no ID as she didn’t have one. In fact, Rey had just about nothing but what was on her back and in her backpack. As much underwear as she could buy, a second part of jeans, two pairs of socks and a few t-shirt’s were stuffed within it. Money’s she would earn, she would stuff in an old man’s wallet she found in a gutter keeping that in her bag as well. 

Of the few bosses she had, Unkar Plutt was of the kindest, and that was saying a lot. The man had been through enough in his life to push him far off the deepend, but he had control of himself, which Rey respected. Upon meeting Unkar who owned the junkyard she happened to stumble upon, she proved her services as security at night as well as maintenance and even found a few vehicles back in working order with the ability to sell them at an even amount. Unkar had noticed her wealth, offering her food and a cut of what was sold. 

He was an older man that lived alone. Heavier set, compete with neck rolls that made him too stiff to move his neck properly. Rey assumed he must have had a hard enough life to keep up with his own personal care. His eyes looked as though there were set too far into the dark circles haunting his face. His large nose and awfully permanent scowl were of the first features she’d of noticed though. Even being from the uncertainty of he background, she was still light hearted and hoped she never became so scorned that she looked like this man. His size was threatening but the man could barely move, which was part of the reason he didn’t mind her company.

The man was riddled with grief. His wife had passed and his two boys had no interest in keeping up the junk yard, as they saw it as garbage that couldn’t be restored. It was like he was stuffed in a pocket between the past and ever changing present. 

Night had simply become her most creative portion of her day. As dawn would set in she’d make a routine of watching with him. With enough persistence, she finally got the old man to accept, bringing her tea and sitting on the back porch’s stoop in silence. It seemed to help him reconnect with who he’d lost, making the man more bearable throughout the day. Not that she would know as the day was when she would get her rest. 

Rey was undeniably homeless, doing everything herself. Clean kept, rested, and fed despite not having a place to live. During the day she would shower at the girls and boys club on Main Street. They never turned her down and she wasn’t sure why. It wasn’t like she paid for membership. Maybe they thought she was some sort of charity case they were helping. Whatever it was, she was thankful for it.

Next, she would head to the laundromat cleaning whatever needed it, often times throwing in the majority of her bag just so that it was warm and smelled clean when she would snuggle into the stuffed item at the table. Sleeping in the laundromat had its perks. Safety for one, being off the streets was her second reason, but a warm place to sleep as the temperature changed towards the middle of fall made all the difference. 

In the time she spent getting her new life down, she would spend some nights with her friend Rose, at her gravesite within the cemetery of Maple Lakes. The town the two of them grew up in. Rose was a fun loving, spunky little person who Rey could share anything with. Memories of their past would all too soon bring Rey back to the last few images she remembered of her friend in their accident, destroying Rey each time. Instead of remembering her face, she began talking to her like they’d been rich enough to buy phones, and play with the silly gadgets. 

Season’s changing meant Rey would use a portion of her laundry money on flowers and trinkets to buy and decorate with for her friend. The night before, she’d let Unkar know she wouldn’t be by and had enough respect to offer a plant for his wife’s memorial, but he seemed to always say no to it, and that they would catch up the following night. Rey would borrow an old pickup truck she’d been working on to bring over these items so as not to destroy them for her friend. 

Maple Lake Cemetery was of the only she’d seen, honestly, but had been clearly the most beautiful. As sunset would settle among it, the already turning maple trees would burn brightly. Red and neon orange leaves would flutter around if a breeze picked up, sprinkling around the rows and rows of those who had passed. There was, however, no lake within the grounds. It was only named as such to mimic the town’s name instead. Maple Lake was a lake community long ago. Now, really keeping the name to harbor fees the surrounding development even though it had not been used publicly for years. 

As dusk approached, so did Rey. She liked being with Rose right then. As kids, they used to watch the stars come out on rooftops they’d climbed, figuring they were small enough to be considered raccoons or small animals to the suburban community. They didn’t need to know there were homeless children scouring the neighborhood to physically stay off the streets. 

Rey would stay into the night until Unkar expected her back, counting stars and talking to Rose as if she was sitting beside her. 

That is until tonight, when she passed a gravesite that seemed to just be laid among the fields of grass that blanket the rest around it. Curious she stands a moment, staring, while holding roses flowers, trinket, small shovel and small white pumpkin that she hand carved Rose’s name into. Stepping towards the mound Rey visits the individual buried there. Barely realizing a headstone, she can just make out the foot of one, cursing at whoever caused this. An idea passes, pulling a single golden mum from one of Rose’s gifts, she places it gently, close to the foot of the stone, telling them, whoever they were, she would be back to help. “This is for you, for now,” she whispered as if she could wake him or her. 

Rey would find Rose a few rows further in than the site she just left, speaking to her as if she was walking with Rose to complete a civic duty. “Sometimes I wonder if you’re with me during the day. I could have sworn you were in my head picking the yellow mums and then I saw the kale. I’ve never seen such a beautiful plant. The purple in the center just made it look as if they were big special roses just for you. I bought two. I hope you like them.” She said now kneeling down by her stone.

Sitting next to Rose, pulling the shovel from her bag, she yammers on about her day, the arrangement she thought would be nice. Simple and nice just like her friend. “I got this from the farmers market,” thumbing over her decoration, “took me four pumpkins to get it down.” Rey covered her mouth to giggle as they used to. 

Once she was finished placing the plants, ready to refill the dirt around them, Rey fishes out the trinket she found. “I saw this,” she says “a long time ago,” pulling it from her bag. It was a squishy, golden cat with it’s paw raised as if it were waving. “It reminded me of all the times we used to walk past that nail salon and pretend we were just like it, waving at traffic.” She smiles fondly at the memory. “I want you to have it,” burying it with the rest of the roots of the plants so no one makes off with her treasure. 

She spends time as they always had into the evening when she realizes the time. Collecting her things, she rises from the ground, “I’ll be back by tomorrow, Rose. Stay... well...” she sniffs. 

Rey maneuvered around the graveyard headed back to the truck when she started feeling an eerie cold. At first it felt as though the night had given way to a dip in barometric pressure signaling the true beginning of fall. Rey swallowed at the thought that maybe Roses gifts wouldn’t quite make it through the night contemplating placing a shirt over the roots to keep them warm tonight, when something catches her eye. 

‘Curiousness kills every animal, including humans...’ she tries to avoid going in towards it. A faint blue followed by a white light ting off of something small on the ground. It calls to her. As she approaches, she finds the yellow mum she placed at this grave site encased in frost. Looking above her the moon, while halved, shining brightly in the clear, star sprinkled sky. ‘Maybe that’s all that it was,’ she thought. ‘Just the right angle and light... makes more sense.’ 

Rey reaches out to clear the stone from caked on dirt and overgrowth. “How is everything else here well kept but not you...Benjamin Solo...” she reads it carefully. While her brow furrows, gasps sound in the distance as if people have come to visit. Turning and scanning the lot, Rey confirms she’s actually alone. ‘I’m in my own head.’ She chides herself. 

A whisper whistling through it’s own breeze, clearly behind her, as if to answer the statement in her mind, sails by her ears. “Nooooo.”

———

The hair on her arms have stood for days. Instead of returning to the graveyard she stuck with her usual routine hanging out with Unkar at dawn. 

He offers her tea and sits with her on the porch as he always has, “something wrong Rey?” Watching her sit almost protecting herself from everything around her, “you’ve been off since the other day.”

It’s the first he’s actually tried to have a conversation with her so she actually tries to explain. “Do you believe in ghosts?” 

The man jerks back into his chair catching his coffee on his chest. A discomforted wail comes from Unkar as he tries to pat down the spill. 

“I’m so so—“

Unkar raises his hand to stop her. “Yes.”

“Yes?” Rey tilted her head. “What are you..?”

“Yes I believe in ghosts, the paranormal, all of it.” 

‘Well that’s news.’ 

“Lydia, my wife, sits here with us when we have our beverage.” He admits. “It’s why I’m quiet and willing to do this with you. I can only assume you’re missing someone too, dear girl.” 

Her silence wades through their space enveloping her in what he’d said. Rey’s brow furrows and a small frown plays on her lips. “I go to the cemetery to see Rose,” she explains, “before I come here and something out of the ordinary happened.” She explains the whole ordeal, “what do you make of it?”

“Contact.” He says lightly.

“What do you mean?” Rey pulls up her back from the chairs. 

“Precisely what I said. Someone is trying for your attention.” He motions for her to follow him in to pour another mug. “Are you hungry? Fear usually burns calories faster than any other emotion. At least for me —you’d think they would make a diet plan based off of it.” It’s simply the first time she’s first, been inside his house and second that she’s ever heard him make a joke. 

Rey smiles, shivering off the remaining cold on her skin. His home is worn and outdated with peeling wallpaper and an actual brick flooring in the kitchen. The mortar had since sunk in within the spots he generously used making the floor more warped than the grounds outside. Black and white pictures of a proud family line adorn the walls leaving a far smaller space around the frames than the framed pictures themselves. Dust laid upon them in sheets in such a way she believed she could pick them up and fold them if she tried. Unkar’s kitchen had an old green refrigerator, linoleum counters and brown painted farm house cabinets. It was certainly a mishmash of colors and textures, but it was his, and Rey would respect it. Cabinets lined two walls coming to the corner one that he seemingly had no idea how to use. It was an awkward space that became a ‘toss all’ place. Just below it was his coffee maker and the tea kettle was on the stove next to the door. Seemed like an off place to put one, but then again... a fast exit if there were ever a fire. 

Together they worked on reheating the water and restarting the percolator for their heated caffeine. “Lydia first came to me about a week after we started this. It was like she wanted us to be outside like we use to.” He smiles at himself, “she loved the view, watching the horizon as the sun dropped or rose, it was the golden beam that brushed across it that she loved the most. ‘Reminded her of spreading the joy, you know like, spreading the wealth of something.” He swallows pushing a cup towards the readied machine, “She sits with me instead of going on to her afterlife.”

“Maybe... being with you... is the afterlife she wants.” 

A dam breaks and he shuts down entirely. “Whatever you experienced last night, find it again. That person, they trust you...they need you.”


	2. Compassion Serves Hope

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Rey decideds to go with Unkar’s advice and help Benjamin Solo find the peace and rest he deserves only to find that someone had destroyed her hard work.

Figuring it has something to do with not being taken care of, Rey borrows Unkar’s junkier trucks from the night she’d gone to see Rose and heads to the nearest garden center. Having no license makes her shake at the risks involved. Getting caught while seeing her plan through will be of the hardest to explain to an officer. She rolls her eyes as if to be experiencing speaking to an officer the whole way down the road. 

Rey loaded her cart with yellow and red mums, not knowing which Benjamin Solo would prefer, but white sat uncomfortably with Rey. White embodied the notion of the white flag. She couldn’t understand why anyone would willingly give up their will to live, so white was out of the question. Purple was too, since no man she knew would openly say purple was their favorite color. And the orange there really just looked brown, so yellow and red were picked. She told herself the colors themselves warmed her soul, even in the cold. It would be her answer if ever the question arose. 

Among the items she purchased, Rey also found two yards of sod, stakes to hold it to the ground so the roots could take, several bags of potting soil, and a river stone engraved with the word “Hope” into its face. It was a hefty price to pay for a stranger, but Rey believed it was her calling to aid this man, and if it were the only thing she’d be proud of in this life, this was going to be it. 

Exhausted as it was late into her usual sleep schedule, Rey found herself back at the cemetery to find him. Speaking to this man like she would to Rose, maybe to make it feel less weird... maybe to connect with him, she wasn’t sure. “Hi. I um, I came back. I thought you might like some company.” She clears her throat as if she’d walked into a crowded room. “It was cold last night, especially here, and I thought maybe you’d like to stay warm.” She started to blink sleepily. Thumbing back to the truck, “I just wanted to check with you before I put something in your space.” Now she sounded crazy, she was sure of it. ‘Check with the deceased, yes, now I sound completely nuts.’ Rey looked up to check the dates, “It’s like no one even tried to give you compassion. You’ve been here for three years and it’s still like that. Benjamin, we’re fixing this right now.”

The sod took two trips, followed by the bags of topsoil, flowers and her backpack with the pocketed stone and her shovel and other items she needed for this job. Seven trips in total, Rey had finally gotten back to him ready to start. “Usually,” She says, “I come to see my friend Rose,” trying to make it less weird. Wanting desperately to be in his good graces instead of angering him by bothering his space. ‘Information’ she thinks is the best way to overcome this feeling of doubt.

“Rose and I were best friends growing up. We did everything together. It just seems right that I’m with her here, even being separated within the two planes of existence I guess.” Rey continued “so what of it with you, Benjamin Solo?” Looking up at his year’s of life, “Good Lord, you were so young. I’m so sorry.” She dug into the ground pulling up rocks from inside the dense, clay like dirt, arranging them in a pile to use later. “Do you think you’d rather the flowers in a pattern or the yellow together and the red on the sides?” She envisions then asks, “like a sunset?” Knowing the answer she sniffles like she’d known the man. As if they had some kind of connection.

Slicing open the first bag of topsoil, Rey grazed her finger with the shovel’s point. A whimper and squeeze of her hand later, she finds she isn’t bleeding. Ready to move forward with her task, she adds some into the dirt below to give the plants a chance, especially this late into the season. Rey situated the mums in the row like the sunset she’d seen in her mind. Then, putting an inch or two of topsoil over his grave, covering the reminder of being truly alone with the blanket of a stranger’s love, she rolled out and secured the sod. Working diligently, doing her best to not stand on his grave out of respect, Rey decorated his space with the stones that were pulled, placing them around the miniature garden she made for him. 

“I hope this keeps you warm,” she says fishing out the smooth inspirational stone, “and that you find the rest you deserve.” Rey placed it too among the flowers so it would be hidden from passers by, protected for this man. Bringing her dirty hand to her lips, Rey kissed her closed fingers, touching them to his name, “You may have people where you are, but I’ll look out for you here...”

Rey rises pulling up her bag and the garbage along with her, her eyelids buckling through yawns of desperation to stay awake. “I’ll see you you tonight Rose,” she said looking towards her friend. “If you need a friend here, Rose is cool, Benjamin. Be nice to her, she’s my best friend. I’ll know,” starting off towards the beaten up Chevy. ‘I can make it,’ groggily trying to convince herself that she’d be fine. 

That evening Rey had returned as she said she would. This time with an old sleeping bag shaped like a t-Rex, offering a wave to Benjamin, and heading right to Rose, “you’d be surprised what people throw out these days,” Rey looks down at the unearthed cat trinket swearing she’ll kill the punk that did it. Next she noticed a row of rocks she didn’t place. “Did you have a visitor today Rose? Did Paige come?” Rey leans in as if Rose could really respond to her, but hears the faintest throw of a stones whizzing past her or hitting Roses headstone. 

‘What the hell?...Kids,’ she thought. One after another small pebbled stones would hurtle themselves in her direction. Stones grew larger and larger still, ricocheting off of the back of her headstone when one the size of the palm of her hand hits her in the side. “Why can’t anyone respect the dead!” She screamed into the night. The pebbles and stones stopped all at once.

A cold fog settled around around her. Rey opened her sleeping bag’s blanket, wrapping it around her shoulders to stay warm. The little boy’s dinosaur head portion of it laid goofily over her left shoulder, triangular spines pathed down her backside and tapered off behind her in a long point for the tail. Her blanket had some cushioning as sleeping bags go, but it wasn’t enough to avoid the pain of being hit with a rock. For a moment she looks over her friends grave, still pristine and pretty minus the flung rocks and the toy that has been resurfaced. Thinking of Unkar’s advice Rey stands with her dinosaur blanket clutched closely to her. The cold seems to follow her. “Benjamin? Are you alright? There must have been some kids that came throu—“ Rey stops in horror seeing bent picks strewn about and the sod pulled off of the the site as if it were bedding. The mums were still intact, and stones that lined his garden were nowhere in place. “Those little bastards,” she manages. 

A hand fell at her shoulder and squeezed over top of her blanket. Screaming sounded like the correct noise to make so she did. Another, cold hand covered her mouth, furthering her panic. Rey jumped trying to remove herself from the hold but there wasn’t anyone there. Nothing to kick or punch her way into or out from. “Please be Rose, please be Rose, please be Rose,” she chanted under her breath.

“N-o-t R-o-s-e-sssssssss.” Whispers fill the air.

“B-Ben-jam-in?” She followed his name with worry. 

“Yeses” filled the air like a symphony of sound, and just like that they’re hushed by a clear, “Yes.” Low and obvious. As if a man in this life was presently behind her. 

“W-What do y-you want?” A flash of panic from trying to help him this morning set in. Seeing the grave pulled apart made her weep. “I’m sorry,” she whined. “I can remove all of it if you want....I ... I just didn’t want you to feel...”

“Alone.” They say at once. 

“I’m not.” He says comfortably reforming before her.

Had she of been able to scream or run or both, she would have. However, his form returned to him partially filling him from the waist up like a balloon. His features while angular, weren’t as threatening as she assumed a ghost would be. He also didn’t mimic the cartoon variations of them that she’d seen in shops, being sold to nearly every home owner in town. No, he looked solid like any man. Paler, of course, but held his own specific features, bathed in a blue essence that fluttered and twinkled like snow under the moon as he moved.

His form had been impressively large. For a moment she wondered how hard it would be to lug clothes around if she had that sort of frame. Assuming she would be built stronger for it, it couldn’t possibly be an issue, just less space in her bag. Her mind raced on and on before this man who was obviously amused with her thoughts. Rey blinks as she’s letting go of her inward thoughts, looking back up into this man’s face. 

Time stretches between them as her eyes roam his face. Soft, she assures herself, but strong features, as she gauges him to be safe to interact with. Again she gains a smile from him, this time making her blush. ‘What is he smiling about anyway?’ 

“You died three years and no one has taken care of you. Surely there must have been someone that gave a damn.” Bothered by the image of leaving someone uncovered like that. “It doesn’t take that long for grass to seed, even if you were just covered I’d of felt better about it. But you weren’t. No one came for you,” she clarified her intentions. 

“You did.” The man looks at her with admiration.

Rey offered small smile, “was it kids,” she points at the mess, thinking of the stones, “or was it you?”

“It was me.” 

“And the stones?” She inquired.

“I wanted your attention.” He pulls up at the stone he threw.

“I’ll have you know that hurt me.” Rubbing her side watching as the river rock glides past her to him.

An apology and explanation being that he couldn’t control the speed it flew at. The more he spoke the more she found she wanted to listen. 

“Why did you tear you grave apart?” Questions seemed to slip from her before she could stop them. 

“I need your help. Closing me off like that made it hard to pass through the ground.” Explaining he could only move upward from his coffin to leave it, “when you’re partially connected to this world.”

Rey’s eyes bulged slightly. “What could you possibly need from me?”

“I need to reunite with my wife before I can move on like your friend.” 

Rey frowns trying to keep back tears of which she’d suppressed by holding on to her friend. “Move on like Rose? She’s not there?” Her eyes well up with her squeak of a question. 

“Rose hasn’t been here this whole time. Even when she’d been buried, she wasn’t there. Rose moved on at the time of her death. She was done here.” He watches her in her blanket fall to the ground at his words. 

“I...I miss her. I need her. She’s like a sister...she..I” she sobbed hard into the grass below them. 

“She’s in a better place now. You can’t deny her of wanting to go. Just as you can’t deny the compassion you have for people like me.” Benjamin bent his frame to sink closer to the ground, close enough to try to comfort her. Stilling the tears that ran down her face into shards of frost he could wave off of her skin. 

It seemed to be the right thing, or at least what she needed to hear to slow her sadness. It was surely a surprise that Rose had never been there. This whole time she spoke to her, she’d just been reassuring herself she wasn’t crazy, or depressed, or living a lie, that Rose was with her and they were still friends. Benjamin’s closeness froze her enough to ask for space. Rey’s bones including the inside of her teeth were pitted with ice as he leaned in. Stifling a yawn, Rey asks Benjamin, “how do we reunite the two of you? You and your wife I mean?”

“We need to move me back home, to my manor, to fulfill the portion of her will that wasn’t followed.” At Rey’s inquire on location, Benjamin pricks her mind with his finger.

“Ow! Can you ask before you do that?” Rey rubs the right, frontal lobe section of her skull. It felt like an electric shock over anything else. May that be so, electricity does not belong in her brain and she was going to be damned if she didn’t tell him to avoid doing it agin all together.

His only response is a smirk and a silent interest in what she can see now. Upon closing her eyes, she sees it. The manor. Several miles away, on the top of the mountain to the west, over looking the revisor. She can see the enormous, abandoned home, surrounding over grown acreage, unkept gardens and pool greened with algae. Then down the lot towards the oak tree line, a family grave yard, several stones with different carvings and names. The wife’s had been overgrown like Benjamin’s, covering a few smaller stones for pets, showing collars with special tags. 

“This won’t be an easy task Benjamin,” Rey added.

“Ben. Just Ben,” he asks her to call him.

“Ok. It’s going to be a hard move, Ben.”

“But it’s possible,” he hands her the river stone back to her. 

‘Hope.’

It’s well into the night now, just before dawn and Rey gets sleepier still telling him she’d be back in the evening.

“What? Why?” He shoots up to what may have been his full height before he passed. 

“Food and sleep, probably clean clothes too.” She hummed trying to keep a composure about her. “Shower.”

“You can sleep here.” He sounds like he’s straining to keep her there.

With significant hurt, not for what he said but for the sure fact of having to repeat it today, “the world frowns on the homeless sleeping in the open.” As she moves away from him to Unkar’s truck. “I’ll see you later Ben.”


	3. They’re Not Here

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Ben decided to follow the Rey, finding that this little one lost another friend. Authorities and emergency crew refuse to give her any information on what was going on, or if Unkar would be okay, and in his rage Ben would move heaven and hell to make Rey heard. 
> 
> They’d spend the day together in the laundromat, where Rey finds enough peace for much needed sleep, and when she wakes she’s ready to help him move on too.

As a spirit that roamed the Earth for the last three years, Ben had learned his abilities could allow him to follow her essence. Humans had relatively faint presences due to being alive and not completely knowing themselves and what they came from. All of that self doubt would tarnish, almost destroy what was once beautifully radiating from each individual soul,but not Rey’s. 

Her’s would create a path he could follow to find out more about this girl who sacrificed the little she had for a stranger asking for her to move his world. At the speed of the truck, Ben would loose the solid golden strength of it in turns down the road having to really remember the directions back to the cemetery. 

Determined, Ben wouldn’t stop. He figured she knew the way back to him. Her light would sparkle tightly together and as it separated would fizzle out like sparkler flakes, burning up to grey ash as it flew behind her. The only blessing of having no formed legs was that he couldn’t complain about pain trying to chase after her as her trail disappeared before him. Ben follows her a few miles down the road, loving the overuse of stop signs and stop lights along the way. Her energy would pool and bathe him in a radiance that reminded him of his wife. The good she’d do for everyone and everything. It’s why they wound up with so many pets. ‘A rescue for a rescue,’ he thought. This girl had been so kind, so familiar, he wondered if they knew each other. If she ran in the same circles with his beloved.

Her essence would stop kiting away from her as she pulled the truck into a junk yard. He watches as she pulls a gate shut behind her, walking over to another gated doorway to move out of the enclosed space with her bag. He’d focus on it. The item had an underlying color. It was Army green, he was sure of it, under layers of dirt and decay. Ben wondered what exactly was in it, but knew she would know he was there if he got close to her. Not sure how she would react, he decides to wait and see, ‘maybe she’ll put it down.’

He watches on as the girl passes in through the front door or an older house on the lot. She calls for someone as she enters but there’s no return call. A few more, louder this time. Alerted Ben surges forward to peer in through windows looking for her, for what she found. If she did find the man. The faint sound of a nasally technician asking “911 what’s your emergency?” Pinged through the phone. Whining, she responded shakily, but to no avail. They simply could not give her the time to speak, “hello? We’re sending a unit to you.”

Moments later, police and EMT personnel scattered over the property. He’d watch as she’d try to tug on anyone for their attention. In his furry at her failures, Ben released a force that physically spelled out every word she uttered to them, writing on the walls with charcoal bricks he had leaned up against a rusted circular grill that hadn’t been used in years. His frown increased as she begged them to tell her the man would be alright. That he didn’t leave her too. 

Several charcoal bricks ground into the walls at the same time writing everything she’d say and think. Horrified, the men and woman hurried out of the haunted house. The fallen had been pulled onto a gurney, covered in a sheet, and pulled up into the back of the ambulance. It and everyone else left her... again. The charcoal dropped into piles of ash as she recognized her words drawn across Mr. Plutt’s space. “Unkar?” Her voice carries a whimper. “Unkar did you? Did you write.... that?...” her frown deepens seeing all of her pleads up on the wall. “Why didn’t they answer me?” She whispers to herself, balled up in the corner of the stair’s landing, tucked away from sight, had anyone been looking for her. 

Rey had no one now. No one. None to the living. Only to the dead, and even then she only belonged to Ben until he’d be reunited at the manor with his wife. Rey knew what being alone was like, to a point... but now she was truly. Unkar was gone. Out of respect, she rose shakily making their last cup of coffee and tea, letting out a wail that could surely shatter glass. “I wasn’t here for you...” she croaked. Looking at the made beverages, “I hope Lydia was.” She watches as the steam bends forward instead of upward. Rey offers a smile, accepting it as his sign, and says goodbye to her friend one last time. 

Pulling on her bag, Rey leaves on foot, walking several blocks westward to a laundromat. Ben follows her at a distance not really knowing how to offer his condolences. Mindlessly, Rey pulls at the door to enter, drops her bag in the machine dumping a cup full of blue gel detergent in, closing and then starting it. He watched from the window as she collapsed into a tighter ball and sobbed.

He watched as her aura shifted from the golden yellow down to the deepest purple. She wasn’t okay. She was dying. Losing the will to live, ready to give her soul to be taken. Ben hurried to her, lifting a towel from another basket, laying it around her head and shoulders so he could wrap her in a hug in an attempt to save her from herself. She only seemed to cry harder having someone there. There she stayed until the buzzer went off on the washer. Ben released her. Rey’s drained expression haunted even the likes of him, as if she was actually dying before his eyes. 

Blinking carefully, “Ben?” Rey tries, “How long have you been here?”

Blowing harshly from his nose, “A while,” he looks her over, trying to calm her, “are you ok?” He asks her.

Rey nods, sniffling the whole way from the washers to the driers. “I lost someone. Another one— I lost my last friend here.” Shuddering our a yawn, “and once you’re reunited, I’ll be truly alone.”

“You’re not alone.”

“Maybe not right now. In this very moment all I have is you. And when you’re gone, because you will be, there will be no one left to hold onto. To matter for.” Exhaustion had set in. Every word lower than the last, as if she was giving up as she spoke.

It couldn’t be the case. Ben was sure exhaustion had to be the culprit. She’d been so wonderful at night. What did she say she needed? Food? Sleep? Maybe a shower? Activities he hasn’t needed in the last three years... this one needed. He’d float through the table and stools that sat underneath it to reach her guiding this poor lost girl to sit beside him. He’d pulled down a blanket or two over him so she could lean on him and not freeze in the process. “There are no laws against when a spirit can visit,” he tries to ease her mind, “we’ll figure it out. You won’t be alone.” He strokes at the towel guiding her head to the bundle of blankets at his shoulder, pushing her gently down into a deep, welcomed sleep.

——-

Rey wakes with a start finding herself still in the laundromat her bag is done and Ben’s still by her side. It’s honestly the longest anyone had ever stayed. Even Rose would be up scratching around, popping back by with things she found while Rey was a sleep. But Ben kept a protective hold on her, maybe out of pity for what she just admitted being afraid of. Though she hated pity, she rather enjoyed the comfort. It was so unlike anything she’d ever been privileged to have. Too bad this man was dead, and didn’t belong to her she thought. 

Moving the crust from her slumber from her eyes, “thank you, Ben,” she pushed away from him worried she’d of angered his wife. 

He nods at her, releasing his outstretched arms from her form. 

“We need to go back to Unkar’s. I need my tools and my truck to move you.” She yawns. “Do you remember what you weighed when you were alive? Anything specific like height or anything?”

He shakes his head slowly.

“Well... if you’re as big as you seem, that things gotta be three bucks, maybe three and a half.” She says with a sigh. “I don’t suppose you can lift it... like you did with the rocks.” It wasn’t a question but he answered.

“No legs, no lift for heavy objects.” He said sadly as if this wasn’t going to work. 

“Are you especially attached to your box? Like if there was some outer damage to it, you’d be alright?” 

To this he actually laughs. It’s a sound she’s sworn to of heard before. Maybe they crossed paths before he died. Surely that had to be all it was. “I just need to be intact. Or as much as I am now I guess. Best not to open it. But scratches are fine.”

Rey smiles through a nod, “alright. Well it’s a walk back, so let’s go.” She slings her dry bag over her shoulder. 

“You don’t want to change?” He points to her bag. 

Rey searches his eyes, “it’s for warmth. Things that come out of the drier hold it for longer. Besides,” she lifts her eyebrows at her stained clothes, “best to use the dirty ones. This job won’t be clean, so why should I?”

He smirks at her. “You sound like someone I know.”

Back at Unkar’s, Rey is unsteady. She speaks to him, not asking Ben if he’s there or not. “Hi, um, Unkar... it’s me. I’m hope you’re alright.” She breathes. “I have a friend with me that needs some help, and um, I’d like to borrow your flat bedded tow truck and some tools?” Quickly telling him she’d bring them right back.

“He’s not here.” Ben says softly. 

“Of... course... not.” She mutters. Situating her nerves, “why don’t you take a seat in the truck and I’ll get what I need.”

Ben stands motionless watching her gather bungee cords, extra hooks, several quilted moving blankets, a white one gallon bottle of something, shovels and a lantern, shoving the items in the back of the cab. “I don’t know where the keys are to this,” she yanks out the wiring under the steering wheel starting it with a spark. 

“There’s no need to do that you know,” Ben looks at the static electricity crawling over his finger tips, “I can start it next time.” Enjoying her lightness, her aura evenly returning to her with her return smile. As small as it was, he felt special knowing he could help her find some sort of peace in all of this too. Maybe she’d look back on this as a dream as she moved on with her life. That was something he felt he could be proud of with his own shy smile creeping across his face. 

“Good to know.” She climbs the side of the truck into the driver’s seat grabbing the open door, “ready?”

———

Ben and Rey make it to the cemetery, pulling in reverse down the stone path she’d take to visit them both. Whispering an apology to everyone she passed, respectfully nodding to each, reaching out to them with their reason for all of this. Her friend watches her wanting to tell her that they were alone, but didn’t have the heart to. This woman would be destroyed if one more person let her know how truly alone she actually was. Staying silent he watches as she puts it in park and kills the engine. This little woman grabs everything she needs and finally the shovel. 

Saying nothing, Rey gets right to it. She’s sure he can’t help, so she doesn’t bother to ask. She pulls up the destroyed sod, rolling it into cylinders and hauling them to the truck. Pulling at the shovel she designates a space to the side of his stone for the dirt. To her surprise, Ben was able to help move the dirt as she broke it up from the space. Uncontrolled for the first several feet, spraying wildly everywhere until he could pull it from the shovel, placing it neatly on top of the pile. At first it took so much concentration but eventually became so much easier. Making clumps look like animals as she would scoop it out of the ground closer to finding him six feet under. Her aura, almost golden in light beamed brightly once she tapped the tip of her shovel into his coffin.

Rey spent time digging around it to be able to lay the quilts and lace the supporting chains before attaching the hooks to the wire. Calling for Ben to toss down the quilts, and hand her the chains, Rey made short work of prepping his coffin.

He watches on as she jumped from it pulling herself up and over the ground’s edge. Dirt fell from her shoulders as she rolled her neck, pulling the cables from the truck’s flatbed. Rey jumped in like she’d been plunging into a pool. He watched in awe as she readied him to be lifted from the very hole they dug. “While I get this,” she pats his coffin, “secured, do you think you could refill the hole?” 

They work in silence at his nod. Rey situates him on the back of the truck pulling one of the lines off of him and back towards his stone. “You don’t have to. I know who I am. Her will just asks for me.” She says quietly to this determined woman. “What’s that?” He eyes the jug. 

“Concrete dissolver. It’s not as hard as you think.” 

He belly laughs at her unintentional pun. 

Rey first digs up the flowers, not having the pots she simply places them in the back of the cab. “What are you doing? What are those for?” 

“Who you mean.”

“Ok who?” He parrots. 

Straightening herself up to be strong and sincere with her message though it pained her that she never knew what owning another’s romantic companionship felt like. “They’re to share with your wife. I don’t know any girl that wouldn’t love to get flowers from her guy.” 

Ben couldn’t help but feel like he was talking to her. Like this was really his wife all along. There were so many things that lead him to believe that this could be her. Her sincerity, her love for all things, for people, respect... all of it. Even her charming doll like features made his heart swim for her. But he had his wife waiting for him on the hill. He knew this girl couldn’t possibly be her. They died together he remembers the scene. How lovely she was, in her white sundress, barefoot, excepting and giving her own vows all to just turn to darkness in an instant. Ben swallows trying not to remember much more, but surely this woman, who he had not even realized never asked her of her name, couldn’t be his. 

“Do you think you could help lift this?” He realizes she’s freed and wrapped his headstone. Grunting at it, “I just need a little lift and we’ll be—oof!”

He was surprised at how much control he had over this. The granite headstone lifted easily and placed just so, lying on it’s side, “perfect—you’re getting good at that. Maybe you can help slide your coffin in at your place —“ her words make him radiate with an extra serge of static supposedly as blush responds to the living. “Come on, Ben.” Rey picks up the remainder of the shovels and heads back to the truck.


	4. Move to Afterlife

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Ben finds home and Rey accepts her future.

Moonlight bathed the property radiantly in the clear, star sprinkled sky. It was large and unthreatening as lone large houses go. Though, not belonging to anywhere specific, didn’t exactly make Ben’s old place anymore inviting. Instead she felt eyes on her. Surely from his wife and family, wondering what he’s doing with a new one. Assuring onlookers that she was no home wrecker in her mind, Ben quirks a smile. He admired the fact that she was so certain she would offend even a fly for trespassing within its space. Wanting to say something, anything, to break her thoughts, he begins to tell her about this place. 

“This was actually my Grandfather’s house. I never met him. My mother owned it well before meeting and marrying my father. I don’t think I’ve ever seen all of the rooms,” his eyes wander over the building in front of them. Rey turns down a pebbled path, not exactly wanting to know more about the home. “We only used the kitchen, bathrooms, and three of the rooms, otherwise I preferred being outside. My parents always seemed to travel, so as I got older I worked. It seemed to pass the time.” He smiles at the memory. 

Ben felt exceptionally giving with his information going on about how full his life really was. He would point out places within the acreage that meant something to him, new experiences, like the one time he got stung swinging a baseball bat at a bee. Or the time when his friends and he tried to build a treehouse in the backyard, and he fell through the floor of it breaking his femur. But none was better than when a girl came walking through the forest holding a fox pup. “She was shy, I remember how she looked at me worried for her friend.”

Rey comes to a stop, pressing the gears into park. Looking on to him as he continued his story. “She looked a lot like you.” Rey’s eyes widened, “she seemed to care for all things, but in that very moment, the pup was more important to her than life itself. The poor thing was starving... and the girl too.” He smiles sadly. “She wouldn’t come in with me, it was the first time in my life that I had to try to get someone to trust me. The pup made it, and so did we.” A tear sparkles down his cheek, “I bought her a ring the first day she agreed to date me.” He hangs his head, “when I asked her to marry me, she acted as though I’d given her the galaxy, when all I offered was me.”

“You’re more than you know then. Let’s get you back to the one that knows it.”

——-

They unload all they’ll need, counting out the paces for the space of which he would need for his coffin. Rey nodded to his wife’s section assuring her that she would also help her clean her place so that they could go off together comfortably. She seemed like she was an honorable woman that Rey, herself, would admire and it only seemed right to finish this despite how brutal it would be going on alone after this. 

They worked well into the night creating the right depth for him. Pulling the truck around she lowered the ramp asking him for help, pushing himself even with the space coming off of the descending ramp. An accidental thud to the head of his box made the two jump. “At least I can’t get a concussion, being dead and all.” He tries offering a joke to ease her mortification. 

Rey apologizes to his waiting wife, easing the chain down until the tautness became loose. Again she would descend to him, making sure the care was taken releasing each material the supported and protected him. She folded each quilted blanket so she could easily manage with them moving out of his site. Next to come up was the chain, she coiled around her hand and bicep until she could neatly settle it within the other finished and unnecessary tools in the truck. Next up was the wire that retracted into the bed itself. 

Ben took this time to gingerly replace the dirt into its original space, unsure of how he should approach moving on. Rey calls for him to help her move the headstone. He slowly complies. “I forgot to grab concrete though. I-“ she sighs. 

“It’s ok,” he shudders a sigh, “just means you’ll have to visit with me again.”

Her brow furrows accepting his recognition of more time. “I will Ben. I’ll look after you and your family.” Her voice breaks. “Why don’t you finish up here. I’ll plant the flowers, and the sod is in the back of you want it.” She offered sadly. 

On her return she asks what color he wants and what they should give her wife. He answers “red for her love of me, and yellow, for the pureness of her golden heart, for her.” 

Rey’s smile quirks up from the corners just enough to buzz through him again. It was her, it had to be. No one had ever mad him feel this way. ‘But she died’ he repeated to himself. ‘She died...’ he goes back, he reached out into the darkness, everywhere, unable to find her. Her cries echoed around him but he hadn’t found her, not until a light guided him home. “Miss?” He tries for the girl’s attention as she cleans up his wife’s grave.

Rey’s face pops up to meet his melded in hope and prayer, “Ben?”

“What is your name? I-I never asked, I should have, but didn’t think to...” he rushed out. 

“I’m Rey.” She watches as his eyes focus on her as if he was anchoring himself to her, “Kenobi.” She sounds out unsure of what has changed in him to have such a focus. Steeling herself from whatever was transpiring, she pulled in her shoulders and lowered them as if she couldn’t fathom why that could ever be special. He watched as Rey planted the yellow mums for his wife. Transfixed there he stares as she wipes the headstone clearing it of ivy and years of wear. 

At first contact static builds within him like butterflies in his stomach. Unveiling her name, ‘Rey Solo’. She spits an awful surprise of a laugh, as if it was some cruel joke to someone who had nothing. A second longer and she’d of gotten angry but Ben knew her, reaching for his wife he explained, “we were married at the end of the summer...” her feet became mists of golden light before her. 

Panicking, she grabbed his hand tightly being the last person on this Earth she trusted. Ben continued, “you were so beautiful,” his face buckled into an uncontrolled sob, “we were in an accident. None of us survived. I- never thought I’d see you again. Rey, I’ve missed you so much.” He lifts his other hand asking to show her his memories. At her lean to him, he presses his finger tip to her skull. A flash of memories overwhelm her to tears. Everything he ever stored, every time they’d spend together, how many times he wanted to ask her... ‘I’ll be your moon, if you stay my sun to keep. I’ll move heaven and hell to protect you, to keep you here with me,’ he practiced over and wanting to make his proposal memorable. Instead he asked the day he’d gotten the flu and she’d done everything to help him feel better, even spent an hour and a half trying to make him chicken noodle soup. He was absolutely miserable, couldn’t speak over a broken whining of a rasp, asking for his wallet to fish out the ring he had stuffed behind his driver’s license. He was a mess trying to squint open his eyes, holding back a cough, he asked her, laying on the couch, pretty much destroyed, asking for all she was, to stay this way-his forever. He promised love he’d always feel for her, protection, a life she always wanted —just to be cherished. His heart lurched when Rey took his soup and cuddled into him, her answer a compounded yes echoing out of her as if she had been a cavern she called into years ago. 

Ben would go on to share his pride at their ceremony, albeit small and sweet instead of fancy, all he cared about was her happiness. How little he knew of anything else in the moments she’d look at him. He shows her the sunset, the very one she said she loved for the brilliant pink color sitting in the haze over the horizon, “You sat with Rose in the front seat,” he swallows. “Rose gave her date and me the back, even though it was so small we really should have taken two cars. But it was important to Rose to make it special and all go in one car.” He squeezes her hand. “It was only a ten minute ride up the road at most. We, we were hit head on- in an instant Rose’s spirit left her body, her date’s too. Mine was pulled from me and you, I couldn’t find you. It was everything to me to be given that chance to always be... but I failed you. I couldn’t find you anywhere.”

More of Rey’s body disappeared below her. Scared of being completely lost in the mist, Rey leaned in, teary-eyed and hopeful that this wasn’t some dream. She changes her hold on him. Securing her arms around his midsection, “you mean you’ve been my family this whole time? Why didn’t you say anything? How is this even possible? Why? How did we do all of this if I’m dead?”

Ben explains that he didn’t know. The spirit’s ejection from the body cleanses itself from all of the strife one had been through during it’s time on Earth. He explains her aura verses the ones that other humans have had. “You’re special Rey. You had a job to do here. And you did it. You went back to everyone you cared for unknowingly trying to set them free. Unkar in turn started you down this path, to me, and that alone set him free... helping you.

Her body begins to give to a cloud. Pulls at her body. Her physical form glows in the moonlight, stretching her being, what’s left of it, up to him, they share their embrace. Filling the surrounding space with an energy that finalizes their resting place, giving way to freedom for the couple, flying high within the sea of stars. 

“It won’t ever matter where we are, so long as we are ours.” Rey breaths her final sigh of relief settling between Ben’s arms.

“Always.”

**Author's Note:**

> I’m not specifically into Halloween but this story was inspired for it by my son who had passed eight years ago. We recently went to plant flowers by him for the fall and for lack of a better explanation, a surge of electricity sparked my mind coming up with the initial ground work for it. 
> 
> I’ve also been inspired to write a Halloween fan fic by some exceptionally talented writers I will add later if they’re alright with the recognition of course. 
> 
> The music for this entire work is Sleepwalker (feat. Joni Fatora) by Illenium
> 
> As always, thanks for reading <3


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